The case for the prosecutionA theory on how the murders were committed, says the Prosecution
David wakes around 5 am, gets dressed and goes to his wardrobe and pulls out his .22 rifle. He unlocks the trigger guard, attaches the silencer and loads the ten -round magazine. He takes a pair of white gloves from a drawer, and puts them on. He wears a pair of his mother's glasses because his are being repaired.

He goes into his sister Laniet's room (the study), where he shoots her twice in the head as she lies sleeping. He goes to his mother's room and shoots her in the forehead. In the room off his mother's, he finds Stephen asleep. He puts the rifle to his head, but Stephen wakes and pushes it away as it goes off. There is a struggle with Stephen bleeding from a scalp wound as he fights for his life. David twists Stephen's T-shirt to strangle him and as he lies on the floor gasping, David finishes him off with a bullet to the head. During the struggle, David’s glasses have fallen off. He turns on the light and picks them up leaving one of the lenses on the floor and carries them back to his bedroom and places them on his chair.

He goes downstairs where his sister Arawa has heard the shots and is praying for help. She is kneeling as David enters the room and he shoots but misses as he cannot see without his glasses, he shoots again and this time the bullet penetrates Arawa’s forehead, killing her. He goes back upstairs where he hears Laniet gurgling and he shoots her again in the top of the head.

David throws his bloodied clothing into the washing machine and turns it on. David's father Robin is still asleep in the caravan. David puts on a fresh set of clothes and goes out with his dog Casey, to do his Otago Daily Times paper run. Returning home, he goes into the lounge and turns the computer on. He types in the suicide message ostensibly from his father to him saying 'sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay'. David hides behind the curtain with the rifle and waits for his father to come in to pray, a daily morning routine.

Robin enters the room and kneels on the other side of the curtains. David shoots his father in the head and leaving the rifle beside his body, David dials 111.